Radio Maritime Services Ruiselede Wingene

The management of Telegraphy, then RTT (Regie van Telefonie en Teleografie ), bought an 80 hectare site in the territory of Wingene and Ruiselede.

The necessary electrical and radio-electrical installations were built here that were necessary for communications throughout the world. On December 13 , 1923, King Albert I laid the foundation stone of the transmitting station.

An important part of this were the 8 pylons (transmission towers) . The antenna masts had a height of 284 meters and were then limited in height so as not to affect the prestige of the Eiffel Tower in Paris . Shortly after its construction, one of the towers was blown down by a heavy storm . This was rebuilt. In 1933, an English passenger plane flew into the dense fog between the towers, hit the wires and crashed with part of the first built tower. The eleven occupants were charred inside the plane. In May 1940, the entire interior of the plant was destroyed by the staff, making it unusable for the Germans . In August 1940, two more towers were blown down by German bombers in three days, one at night and one in a thick fog. One tower was truncated at 160 meters in September 1940 and was completely demolished in 1953. Some of the other pylons were subsequently shortened to 120 meters by the German occupiers and others were completely taken down. In 1983, the so-called television tower was shortened to 110 meters and finally toppled in July 1993. There are now four smaller transmission towers of 125 meters high.

The pylons were equipped with 28 tension cables. The masts were arranged in 2 parallel rows of 4, 400 meters apart. Transverse tension cables hung between the masts, to which the insulators were attached. Attached to the insulators were the wires of the actual antenna, 12 in total. The transmitter operated on a wavelength of 18,000 meters and had a power of 250 kilowatts . They were machines that weighed over 3000 kilograms each !. The arrangement of the antenna was such that, if one of these antenna conductors were to break, this section could be switched off. To prevent overloading of the antenna structure in the event of ice formation , a system for heating the cables was provided.

The first radio telegraph connection, Brussels-New York, was inaugurated on October 3, 1927; the first messages with the road indication "via BELRADIO" reached America directly, along a Belgian road. On September 1 , 1928, short-wave radio telegraph service with the Congo colony was opened. From 1927, this station provided the broadcasts for Belradio: the fixed connections with America, later with Belgian Congo and with the main European cities.

From the very beginning, the transmitters were also used for long-distance ship traffic . From 1928 onwards, radio telegraphy and radiotelephony connections using short waves were also started in Wingene. The long wave installations were destroyed and removed during the Second World War. The long-wave transmitters were no longer rebuilt and only short-wave transmitters were used (21 in use around 1960). Over the years, the transmitting installations and the antenna park were regularly adapted to technical developments . The ever-increasing share of maritime services in the operation of the transmission center and the reduction of so-called point-to-point traffic led to the SCRE being integrated into the Maritime Radio Services in 1972.

In 1999 , the antenna park consisted of a total of 51 antennas.

The transmitting station was used until the 1970s by the Telegraaf en Telegraaf (RTT) management and later by Belgacom. The domain now belongs to the Belgian Defense. Part of this military domain is therefore not accessible. The transmitting station is also part of the NATO HF network. If the satellite phone goes down, there is the broadcast station as a backup. Eighteen people work there. Network operators such as Proximus have an agreement with Defense and can rent the transmission towers. These installations are also protected as monuments because of their industrial-archaeological and scientific value.

This current Belradio radio station includes installations for point-to-point connections for shipping all over the world.

Willem Vandenameele